Golden Tide Sweep Ridgway to Finish Regular Season at 10-9

CURWENSVILLE – For the second time in three days, thanks to early spring inclement weather, the Curwensville Golden Tide baseball squad played a double header.

Ridgway was the opponent this time, as the Elkers traveled to Curwensville Wednesday for a long afternoon of ball versus the Tide.

And it was a fine afternoon of pitching and hitting for the Tide as they swept the Elkers 11-1 and 6-0. The two wins give Curwensville a winning regular season, finishing at 10-9.

This all came after the Golden Tide lost its first four games and then come back to win 10 of its last 15, including five of the final six games.

Curwensville head coach Denny Johns was, as he said, “proud” of his squad, “We got off to a slow start and got into a hole. So I am extremely proud of how these guys responded and came back to have a winning record. They never quit.”

GAME 1

Senior hurler Ricky Magnuson was all but perfect for the Tide in the first game, giving up one unearned run in the second inning on his way to a five inning no-hitter. The win gives Magnuson a 2-1 mark on the year from the mound.

Johns commented about the game thrown by Magnuson, saying, “Ricky started a little slow, and struggled with throwing strikes early on. Once he settled down though, and settled in, he was very effective and tough.”

Curwensville got three hits each from Tanner Elensky, (2 doubles), Kyle Johns (2 doubles), Brett Gardner (1 triple) and Jake B. Stiles, as the Tide banged out 17 hits in just five innings.

Johns picked up five RBI’s in the rout of Ridgway.

Coach Johns closed out game one commenting on his offense,“17 hits speaks for itself. We just swung the bats really well against a pretty good pitcher in MacDonald.”

It should be noted that MacDonald did strikeout eight Tide hitters inn his three innings of work on the hill.

Another strong pitching performance, along with the continuation of hot bats enabled Curwensville to sweep the double header over the Elkers, taking the second game with a 6-0 shutout.

This time senior Kyle Johns and junior A. J. Bloom combined for a three hit blanking of Ridgway with Bloom gaining the win and increasing his record to 2-2 on the year.

Denny Johns once again talked about his pitching, “The pitching of Kyle (Johns) and A. J. (Bloom) certainly carried over from the first game on Ricky’s excellent performance. To hold Ridgway to one run in two games was a great boost to the squad.”

The Tide had four players with two hits in the nightcap: Tanner Elensky (2 doubles), Brett Gardner (2 doubles), Jake B. Stiles and Johns.

Bloom and Travis Lansberry also each smacked a double as Curwensville had six doubles in the second game and 10 on the day.

Elensky had four doubles in the two wins and Johns drove in two more teammates.

In Curwensville’s last three games Johns had 11 RBI’s.

For Ridgway, Ben MacDonald had a double.

Johns summed up the second game and the doubleheader sweep, saying, “We got off to a quick start in the second game just as we did in the first one. It was big that Tanner (Elensky) led off the first game with a double and did the same thing in the second game. And 28 hits for the day was really welcome and I hope we can carry this forward into the District 9 playoffs.”

The Tide will now wait for the District 9 AA playoffs, which start next week. The seedings and pairings should be announced on Friday.

District 9 AA baseball has four other schools along with the Golden Tide. The four others are Brookville, Kane, Karns City and Moniteau.